Today we are speaking with Giizh Sarah Agaton Howes. Howes is an award-winning Anishinaabe creator, artist and organizer from Fond Du Lac reservation and Muscogree Creek. She’s the CEO of Heart Berry, a contemporary Ojibwe Design brand that offers wool blankets, apparel, gifts and accessories rooted in Howes’s beadwork and Ojibwe floral designs.

Giizh was raised by an artist mother but never thought about herself as one until she realized art wasn’t just paintings in a museum but the cultural traditions from her Ojibwe community. She started with beading and moccasin making. That led to her teaching workshops so others could become cultural makers too.

She shares the origin story of Heart Berry, which grew out of a desire to see Ojibwe designs translated into contemporary apparel and to take back the wool blanket as a Native craft. 

She also talks about a recent mural project on the Cloquet bandshell, finding art that we love and that loves us back, and course correcting after a wrong turn. 

Giizh lives in Sawyer with her family. These days, she’s experiencing the bittersweet emotions of a parent who has recently seen her first child graduate from high school.